TO THE CLOUDS
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painted clouds! sweet beauties of the sky,How have I view’d your motion and your restWhen like fleet hunters ye have left mine eye,In your thin gauze of woolly-fleecing drest;Or in your threaten’d thunder’s grave black vest,Like black deep waters slowly moving by,Awfully striking the spectator’s breastWith your Creator’s dread sublimity,As admiration mutely views your storms.And I do love to see you idly lie,Painted by heav’n as various as your forms,Pausing upon the eastern mountain high,As morn awakes with spring’s wood-harmony;And sweeter still, when in your slumbers soothYou hang the western arch o’er day’s proud eye:Still as the even-pool, uncurv’d and smooth,My gazing soul has look’d most placidly;And higher still devoutly wish’d to strain,To wipe your shrouds and sky’s blue blinders by,With all the warmness of a moon-struck brain,--To catch a glimpse of Him who bids you reign,And view the dwelling of all majesty.
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